


Ancient Space Monkey Blue Team

by fresne



Category: Badass Women in History (Blog)
Genre: F/F, Female-Centric, Femslash, Misses Clause Challenge, POV Female Character, Yuletide 2014, Yuletide Treat, no descriptions of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Far, far, far in the future, the most popular wave of all the possible reality syncs was "Battle of the Ancient Dudes and Babes" in which historical figures from Earth's history were cloned, given super powers, and made to fight each other in gladiatorial games for the amused distraction of the masses and the enrichment of their owners.</p><p>The most popular team was the "Ancient Space Monkey Blue", which had the benefit of a team name that none of the members objected to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancient Space Monkey Blue Team

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angharad_crewe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angharad_crewe/gifts).



> Credit must go to CapriciousK, who plotted an ancestor of this fic with me on a long ago car trip... The names and some characters have changed. But the crack lives on.

Far, far, far in the future, the most popular wave of all the possible reality syncs was "Battle of the Ancient Dudes and Babes" in which historical figures from Earth's history were cloned, given super powers, and made to fight each other in gladiatorial games for the amused distraction of the masses and the enrichment of their owners.

There were "The Dead First Ladies" made up of the power house team of: Martha Washington, Dolly Madison and her good friend Sarah Polk, Eleanor Roosevelt, Edith Wilson and Caroline Harrison. It should also be mentioned that everyone but Dolly had received something of an appearance upgrade. Their Team Owner said out of the sphere hovering in its gelatinous form, "As the kids say, they are muy suavo now. That is the word yes, muy and suavo. That is what the kids are saying now, yes. Make sure the kids are saying that and if they aren't, threaten to kill their parents until they say it."

There were the "Ancient Nympho Empresses," made up of Czarina Catherine the Great, Empress Theodora, Empress Wu Zeitan, Empress Josephine Bonaparte, Queen Victoria who had been Empress of India, and Empress Valeria Messalina. To say the Empresses were not happy with the name of their team would be an understatement. Except Catherine, who leveraged it to ensure a steady sale of merchandise and had challenged Empress Messalina as to which of them could sell more. Catherine understood the value of perception.

However, the most popular team was the "Ancient Space Monkey Blue", which had the benefit of a team name that none of the members objected to. 

"It was a marketing thing," said the Team's Owner M, who was a blue hyper-intelligent ape. It should also be mentioned that each team owner controlled a significant portion of some galaxy or another, and the games were often their way of going to war with each other without actually going to war. It was efficient, popular, and solar systems were bet on the results of a single game. Most of the time, the participants even lived through the battles, as cloning was expensive, good materials hard to come by, and they wanted the crowds hungry for the end of the season, not confused with the constant introduction of new characters. So deaths were reserved for Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and the Galaxy Cup.

However, Ancient Space Monkey Blue was down a member after Amelia Earhart's riveting fate in the previous year's quarter-finals, which washed them out of contention for the Galaxies Cup. The scientists in their labs cloned out someone new. 

The first thing that Joan of Arc saw as she gasped into cloned life were the faces of Hatshepsut of Egypt, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Elizabeth I of England.

Hatshepsut said, "Breathe carefully. Being born is hard on the lungs."

Eleanor said, "You are not dead, Maid of Orleans."

Elizabeth said, "She's on fire. Someone should extinguish the whore of France." She crossed her arms and smiled pleasantly.

Hatshepsut sighed and doused Joan with a glass of water, which wasn't nearly enough.

All of the cloned historical figures in the games had super powers. 

Elizabeth, as a virgin queen, had been equated by the sixteen year old genius scientist who cloned her with a story by someone called Has Christian Anderson and could send splinters of ice into hearts if her aim was good, as well as general snow and ice. A somewhat older scientist had given Eleanor, as the patron of troubadours, the power of a super sonic voice. In Eleanor's opinion the fact that she had actually ridden to wars was of more use than a sonic song. Hatshepsut's power involved causing stone pillars to rise up out of the ground. Hatshepsut muttered from time to time. "I also funded expeditions of exploration." But then again, it was rare for the participants to be happy with their powers or for that matter that they had to participate.

That Joan's power was to control fire was the simple and inevitable result of cloning lab humour. That she remembered her own death was Team Owner M's idea of adding drama to the new season.

Catherine of Valois wasn't there when Joan woke up. She was practicing throwing Fleur de Lys that appeared in her hands, which if they hit her opponent's heart would make them fall in love with her. She did come running when Hatshepsut called for more buckets of water. She grabbed a vase that she kept in memory of her Owen and ran to be of assistance, which was somewhat the opposite result of what happened.

Joan saw Catherine and pointed her flaming finger at her. "You betrayed France!"

Eleanor sighed and dumped red wine on the sputtering Joan. "She was given away in a political marriage to a King she barely saw enough to get her with child. That she was too weak to grasp what she had is another matter," which earned her a poorly flung Fleur de Lys, which didn't so much as hit the bodice of Eleanor's period inappropriate velvet gown stuffed with rather more bodice than she'd had in her first life.

Just then Christine de Pizan bustled into room. She said, "I hurried through my class on indirect strategy as quickly as I could." She held out her hand to Joan. "Welcome to what I like to call the City of Ladies."

Elizabeth coughed. "Some of us are Queens."

Hatshepsut splashed a fresh bucket of water on Joan. "Look to yourself. I was Pharaoh." 

"Whatever our titles, we ruled." Eleanor put down the bottle of wine with a sharp click of glass against synthetic stone. "I never let them take my titles until I'd gained a new and equal, or better one."

Catherine sniffed for she missed her Owen. She'd have rather lived in a cottage of only nine or sixteen rooms in Wales than been Queen of England or France.

Christine pinched her nose, because she was not having this discussion again. 

Joan finally stopped burning. She said, "What is this place?" When they explained it with much interruptions from each other, she said, "That is terrible."

Elizabeth's head lifted proudly. "We are currently last in our division, which is in no way my fault." She glared at Catherine. "If some people would keep to their practice and not spend all their time mooning over dead lovers, then…"

"At least I had a true love and didn't deny it in the name of being a Queen of a cold damp country. You are a grave disappointment as a great, great grandchild. Why can't you learn to love?" Catherine threw a Fleur de Lys at Elizabeth, which she easily deflected with an ice shield. 

Hatshepsut and Eleanor did a quick three rounds of monument, papyrus, knife as to who would break the fight up.

Christine said somewhat plaintively. "It's not really all that bad. We are generally favoured in the betting as the underdogs, who don't get along and will inevitably pull together in the Galaxy Cup games."

"No. What is terrible is that you fight on behalf of our oppressors." Joan climbed off the table and looked up at the glowing light affixed to the centre of the ceiling, which she did not yet know contained a camera. She smiled as if looking at the face of God. "It is our duty to resist and in resisting escape."

Eleanor did not say that she had Amelia's plans for the air ducts of their facility. Christine did not say that they would need to make it to the Galaxy Cup, which she'd calculated was their only efficient route of escape. Hatshepsut did not said that she'd been quietly gathering alliances from key members of other teams. Elizabeth did not say that she and Eleanor Roosevelt had had several highly stimulating discussions regarding the operations of starcraft. Catherine did not say that she had been very disappointed when she met Henry VIII. That came five minutes later after they hustled Joan into the bathroom, where they turned on all the rainwater fountains designed to muffle the noise of bodily functions and huddled in the largest stall at the end of the row.

Hatshepsut said, "The people of the future like to pretend that they don't so much as fart."

Joan nodded and filed this information away with all the rest of what she'd been told. "We shall try for freedom then?"

"Freedom," agreed Christine. They each held a hand over the toilet and clasped hands, each saying, "Freedom!" in their turn. With a quirk of her lips, Hatshepsut flushed the toilet for such was her humour. 

"But first," said Christine, "We'll need to get to the Galaxies Cup and to do that, Joan, you'll need to become comfortable with your powers."

"Good luck with that," muttered Elizabeth and as Eleanor turned a beatific smile at her, Elizabeth said, "No. I'm not… no." 

Elizabeth became Joan's training partner. 

Joan asked Eleanor later, "Why does she hate me. I could understand my hating her. She is English, but the angels have told me that she's really Welsh and has no claim at all to the English throne and was not truly a virgin when she died and..."

"And you wonder why she doesn't like you," said Eleanor. She looked at Joan's earnest face and could not resist putting her arm around her shoulders for a hug. "Focus on fire and freedom. We have three months before the games begin again and you're still afraid of your own power."

Eleanor consulted with Hatshepsut, who then began telling Elizabeth to sleep with Joan to ease the obvious sexual tension they were under. 

Catherine said, "I knew it! You are the greatest disappointment I could have had for a granddaughter. At least your sister Mary married and married for love." 

While Christine said, "You are not actually making matters better."

Hatshepsut ate a fig and pointed at the training room, where Joan was arguing that what Hatshepsut said wasn't true with the angel voices that only she could hear.

Christine muttered, "Why is my team insane?" Then she straightened her shoulders, because this was the City of Ladies, and Ladies helped each other. She went in and gave them both constructive criticism, which resulted in Elizabeth and Joan bonding over being annoyed with Christine.

Hatshepsut said, "That works too." 

Oh, the pre-games didn't go well. But the Team Owner M gave them a pep talk involving genetically enhanced eel-monkey hybrids. They gave themselves a pep talk. As the season began, they began to win. 

Small victories at first. The vid of Elizabeth icing the floor under Jeanne de Clisson, the Lioness of Britany, who slipped with a ripe curse was very popular. Joan's habit of pious prayer before battle inspired a whole fashion for shirts with red crosses. That and the way she was utterly relentless. After she made it through the first round of the semi-finals, Elizabeth visited Joan's room with a bottle of brandy wine and some chocolate. "To celebrate."

They resolved their sexual tension. They made new tension, as Elizabeth was inclined to jealousy and throwing her slippers.

Eleanor whispered to Christine, "Perhaps Elizabeth should have had the power over fire."

"I heard that," said Elizabeth. She raised red brows. "I've told you I have excellent hearing."

Eleanor raised her own brows as if to say that she knew and then smiled to remind Elizabeth just which of them had invented the courts of Love in the first place. She was whispering and miming as she was saving her voice for the Quarter-Finals. It was with some sorrow that she stood over the battered body of Boadicea, who had clouded the game with a thick mist, which had not stopped Eleanor's voice.

They came to the Galaxy Cup as a Wildcard team. They faced the Dead First Ladies and the Ancient Nympho Empresses. They faced them and turned right around and using the materials they'd been gathering through the air ducts, made a break for freedom. A break, and a broken space station, and they were flying into the void with Eleanor Roosevelt saying, "Hold on!" as she engaged the hyper-drive.

Elizabeth put her arm around Joan, in what might have been a tender moment, and might have been a gesture to let Roosevelt know to stop eyeing her girlfriend.

"To freedom," said Christine. "To Freedom," they all agreed. 

They did not know there was a camera on the ceiling and they had only entered into the larger game.

That would come later. 

In that moment, they enjoyed their first breaths of free recycled air.

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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